April 30, 2012

Philanthropy is about people

Nonprofits and philanthropic funders can get so caught up in
their causes and strategies that they forget about the actual people they exist
to serve, or simply treat them as “metrics” to help gauge their organizational impact.

But several recent reports suggest the demand and supply
sides of the charitable marketplace both need to better understand and engage
real people in the communities they serve.

Needle-Moving Community Collaboratives, a report by The
Bridgespan Group, says fixing tough community problems will require new
strategies for how to think and work together.

And The Value of Community Philanthropy, a report from the
Aga Khan Foundation and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, says social and
global progress depends on community giving and participation.

While the first report focuses on global community-building
and the second looks at community-building in the U.S., both reports emphasize
the fundamental importance of local involvement.

The global report says local participation in community projects
can result in greater local ownership and accountability, for example, while
the U.S. report says key operating principles for effective community
partnerships include the engagement of community members as “substantive
partners.”

The global report, in fact, says that “local people helping each other, by
sharing resources for the common good” represents a new force in the charitable
world that is “driven by ordinary people working form the bottom up of our
societies, rather than wealthy people working from the top down.”

Key players in building the “capacity” of communities are
nonprofits, which themselves face big challenges in building their own
organizational capacity.

The lessons of the two reports on community-building apply
to building organizations as well: A nonprofit needs to engage all its
constituents in its efforts to work smarter and serve better.

Yet many donors and funders act as if the wealth they
control qualifies them as smart charitable investors who know the best way to
address tough social and global problems, regardless of the real needs of their
clients.

In the emerging social economy, that has to change.

That point was reinforced in an article April 6 in The New
York Times Magazine.

In the article, a coffee entrepreneur in Kampala, Uganda,
had some sobering criticism of traditional philanthropy.

While he was talking specifically about global aid, his
comments have implications for philanthropy in the U.S.

“Every society that has prospered has done it through trade
and not aid,” said Andrew Rugasira. “Africa will be no different. Charity
doesn’t incentivize. It stifles innovation. It causes chronic dependency.”

To succeed, nonprofits and social entrepreneurs need
investments and incentives to develop sustainable business models.

So funders and donors need to find ways to shift their
mindset from charity to strategic investment that helps nonprofits and
communities build their own capacity to succeed.

And an essential strategy for building the capacity of
nonprofits and communities is to engage their clients, partners and other
constituents in understanding the social and global problems they face, and
shaping strategies to address those problems.

All philanthropy, in short, is local, and its effectiveness
is rooted in engaging the people and communities it serves.

1 Comments:

I agree that philanthropy is local or that it creates a localized world. Anyone that works with philanthropical efforts, ultimately feels more connected with whomever they are helping.

You point about the ordinary person contributing to philanthropic change is something I completely agree with. The more individuals working for the common good, the better the common good is defined. In other words, the more voices active in creating change the better this change will actually be because it represents greater vision. I think philanthropic efforts get in trouble when they rely too much on large donor funding.